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"N2EY" wrote:
Dwight Stewart wrote: (my comments here snipped) I'm looking for the facts. Some of those facts may not be things anyone today is proud of. I'm not proud that the founders could "proclaim liberty" and say "all men are created equal" and then allow slavery to exist in their country. In very broad terms, the problem was that the North industrialized and the South stayed agrarian. The North rejected slavery in favor of immigration, while the South allowed slavery to grow to the extent that by 1860 in at least two states the number of slaves exceeded the number of free people. Blacks were obviosuly held as slaves in the South (nobody has denied that) and I've acknowledged that slavery played a role in the Civil War (the Emac. Proc. shows that). I simply don't agree slavery was the cause and have given some reasons why - which you've either ignored or tried to downplay. At the same time, you've pointed your finger at everyone else (the South, the founders, and just about anyone else you can think of) while ignoring or downplaying your own State's involvement in the slave trade. Above, you said the North rejected slavery. In another message, you said they did so before they were forced to do so. Both are true. But what you didn't say is that both are just barely true when it comes to your State. According to the Central Pennsylvania African American History Web Site (www.afrolumens.org/slavery/), quoting from the Pennsylvania State Archives (Harrisburg), slaves were owned in Pennsylvania as late as 1842, only 18 years before the Civil War. Seems like your State got out of the slave trade just in the nick of time - just in the nick of time for you to look down your nose at others today. Only if you ignore indentured, bound, or apprentice, workers in the North. Those were not slaves. It was simply slavery by a different name. Most were sold into indentured servitude (especially the very poor and blacks) and were held in that situation by force of law. Most blacks were sold into lifelong servitude. Indentured workers serving fixed terms were rarely paid, instead promised money or land afterwards. Of those who were supposedly paid, the money was often collected back to cover the costs of the employer. Their working and living conditions were horrible. Many, if not most, were abused by their employers and, because of working conditions or abuse, many died before completing their indenture. Of those who did serve out their terms, evidence suggests most remained poor afterwards, routinely deprived of the things they were promised. [Source: America, A Narrative History, pgs 118-121, Norton & Company Publishing, New York/London] They had *contracts* - BIG difference! See paragraph above. Indentured and bound workers were (for the most part) working off debts. It was common practice for poor European immigrants to indenture themselves for 7 years to pay for their transatlantic passage. After that 7 years, they were free. Yes, probably half the white settlers from England, Ireland, and Germany, entered the country using this method. But we're talking about blacks, not white settlers from Europe (the living and working conditions were rarely the same). Dwight Stewart (W5NET) http://www.qsl.net/w5net/ |
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